


but we were in screaming colour

by scorchstorm



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, I Tried, M/M, Romance, idk what this is, post 9x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 03:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorchstorm/pseuds/scorchstorm
Summary: There's a colour for everyone.And Ian has always been the one colour he's never managed to see in anyone else.// mickey doesn't quite match ian, but it doesn't stop ian from falling anyway.





	but we were in screaming colour

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I was writing for a little while, and it was basically how Ian associates the people in his life with a colour depending on who they are and what the colour means. 
> 
> I don't really know. I liked it and I rolled with it, and here it is. Hopefully it's decent, although I'm a bit rusty.

There’s a colour for everyone.

Ian never really could explain it. It’s something he’s done for as long as he can remember, something that he can’t pull apart from all his memories. The way he associates people with different colours has always been apparent and never separate. Every day, he’d see those in his life whether they were important parts of him or just barely considered friends and just see everything they do and everything they are in screaming colour.

And knowing that had never bothered him growing up. He just figured everyone in his life had a colour, as though they were designated a particular one and could vary in its shade, but that’s it. That whatever colour they had was theirs, and theirs to keep.

Frank was grey.

He’d always been that way to Ian for a lot of reasons. A slate shade, the kind that the slab of a sidewalk is, drained of life. No matter how often he tried to find the will to keep going at the bottom of a bottle, it’d never work. He breathes and he moves but he doesn’t live, only survives, and he’s grey in the sense of dissociation with the world around him. No care for the places he goes or the havoc he wreaks, and certainly no feeling for his children.

And then there was Monica.

A whirlwind of colour at the best of times, through those highs and lows that she’d get like second nature, as easy as breathing. The darkest of blues, those depressive periods, to the brightest of yellows, so blinding it’s fabricated. The middle ground, though, when she was coming down from a drug binge or lifting a little from the depths, would be grey.

A different shade to Frank, but compatible all the same. The kind of grey that curls into the air like cigarette smoke, or fumes from a flame – always a result of something (or someone, usually her children) that would be burning in her wake. Ian associated her more with loss, because more often than not he missed her presence, mainly because she was meant to be their _mother_.

Over time, it was blatant to see how well Frank and Monica merged together as one. Sometimes, he could barely tell their shades apart. Frank would be swimming in his sins and then Monica would come along, and then they’d be fading away together, trying to run from the inevitability that life was. Monica’s colour would fade every time she left, and Ian wouldn’t be able to see it anymore. The only grey he’d see would be Frank’s, which would become like steel, hardened by his loss and detached from feeling anything.

Colours weren’t always as heavy as theirs, though.

Fiona was brown. A light shade that reminds him of the Earth beneath their feet, a grounding presence that reminds him there’s more to life than shades of grey. She gave them everything and it was blatant in the way she carried herself, with her siblings as priority. Her mocha hair was messy and mirrored the chaos that was the Gallagher household, and chocolate eyes full of kindness that were always glassy, always fragile.

Steve was brown, too. For a period of time, he seemed to almost rival Fiona’s shade. Less vibrant but still worthwhile, a rich wood colour that promised good intentions. Except then they learned the truth, and the more his brown darkened, the more it became rust. Steve turned to Jimmy, his ‘job’ turned to car theft, his caramel hue became burnt cedar. It reminded Ian of dirt, because it stained their colours with his lies, coating their skin and dampening Fiona’s spirits.

Ian always hated himself in a way for not seeing it sooner, that they didn’t quite match. That’s not to say people with different colours couldn’t fit, it was rare but possible, but Ian always equated the same colours to be of people that were simply meant to be. They were both brown, they both seemed good, and Fiona deserved to be happy. Fiona was _too_ good at times, even if her branches would wilt and for her soil to dry out, for those periods in which she just wanted to give up. And then she’d come back twice as fierce, without Jimmy, thick roots taking hold once again and withstanding the storm that threatened to sway her.

Kev and V were green, and they were a match in the sense that they just _fit_ , better than Ian had ever seen. Where V was a loud, unapologetic shamrock colour, Kev was a more subtle mint, soothing and an outlet in times of need. Their two different tones made for a blissful balance, a gleaming emerald that was natural and displayed growth and perseverance. V was loud, and Kev was slower and softer around the edges, but together they mellowed one another out and created something content.

And then there was Lip – blue. He’s always been blue, but a deep kind, like the ocean. It was his intelligence, his confidence, the calm demeanour he maintained with his sarcasm as a weapon. It mirrored the depth in which Lip felt things, often before he could help himself. Ian remembers Karen (and God, did he hate her and her gold coating, glittering and full of fake promise and deceptive) and the wave that followed. The lapis turned into navy, an intense bout of sadness Ian had never seen before, not even all those times when Monica had ran off or Frank had lashed out at them.

This had been different.

And over time, it took on an arctic appeal, an icy hue that chilled Ian to the bone. He was merciless, bringing down those around them because he was anchored to the bottom of the sea, drowning in sapphire shades of cold. He’d tried so hard to bring Mandy down, too, because she was something good and he didn’t know how to handle that.

She was blue, too.

It was obvious in the way that she clashed with his brother that they were similar, compatible in one way and yet futile in another. Ian hated the way Lip had treated her, but could understand that Mandy was as forceful as a tsunami at her worst, leaving destruction sometimes that was so similar to their childhood and their life as a whole that he knows just how badly it’d make Lip snap.

Mandy was a stone kind, initially, having stuck her brothers on Ian with a ruthlessness he’d never seen before. Except then he’d told her the truth, and the storm had ceased, and she’d became one of the greatest things in his life. Her shade turned into the sky above them, full of dreams and aspirations, the longingness of stability and for someone to want her around. Every now and then, there were still flecks of deeper shades, reminders that she’s a fucking Milkovich and shouldn’t be taken as anything else, fierce and calculating and brash, but Ian still saw the vibrancy.

Debbie was yellow. The epitome of sunshine growing up, capable of joy somehow even in the depths of the ghetto. Her smile was soft, like sunrays peeking in between the curtains in the early hours, and her eyes were innocent, even if she wasn’t. She had her gold moments, but the good kind; loyal and honest to those she loved, and yet a raging medallion shade when bitterness reared its ugly head and took hold. As with all things, time takes its toll, and the brightness of Debbie’s canary yellow had dulled into a deep flaxen, shaped by bullying and the absence of loved ones and every fucking thing that Ian wished he could’ve protected her from.

Carl was orange. His constant love for pyrotechnics and his sociopathic tendencies somehow shaped him to be a burnt sky, full of energy and fearless, strengthened by proving people wrong. His impulsivity was a marigold tint, a constant risk that reflected his willingness to just simply _be_. A little out of his depth (and sometimes, out of his mind) but a warming presence all the same.  When his spirit was dampened, it was a sunset, fading away in favour of the darker tinges of rust that spread like watercolour, uncontrollable and inevitable. And yet he was still capable of being soft, those rare moments shining through when it came to family, sweet like honey.

Liam was white. As pristine as fresh snow, as fragile as porcelain. It’d always mainly been due to his age and lack of awareness to whatever hell the Gallaghers were facing head on, but Liam was innocent. Nothing short of good, nothing shy of vulnerable. Those moments like Fiona with the coke turned him to frost, a victim of their own violent delights. White was such a rare occurrence that it was so easy for the others’ colours to bleed over his, to make them believe that they were changing, capable of becoming something different.

And there were others in his life, like Sheila, who was a gentle rose with her unconditional love and nurture. She was soft, and sweet like sugar, like cotton candy and the most delicate of flowers. Thoughtful to the bone and tenderness with every touch, Sheila was a diamond in the rough. Sure, her bolts weren’t screwed on tight, but nobody was perfect. Her presence, however hectic it was, somehow was still calming. Even those moments of fuchsia, the way she’d snapped at Grammy unapologetically and the way she’d eventually clash with her pent up feelings of abandonment. Those blinding moments in which she became even more vivacious, basking in the afterglow with blush-filled cheeks.

Truthfully, he’d never seen another pink colour quite as bright and as constant as Sheila Jackson. There were others in passing, but their shades of peach and salmon were vague, unable to hold even a candle to Sheila’s lowest moods. There’d been plenty of blues, the most common for varying reasons, followed by shades of green and oranges, the occasional yellow and purple, the odd blip of grey and white and everything in between.

And then there was Ian.

 

* * *

 

 

Ian had always been red, as far back as he can remember. The scarlet kind, full of passion and adrenaline-fuelled enthusiasm and relentless desire for love. All the things he’d consistently craved throughout his life but hadn’t quite been able to hold on to at the best of times. Except red is a constant for him, whether it be due to the fiery shade of his hair or the blood beneath his nails at the hardest of times, it’s always there.

It’s a part of him.

The more he suffered, the darker it got. When he’d become so angry and his vision would become overtaken with crimson. When he’d get into a fight and wine would seemingly spill everywhere. When he’d be hurt and his pain could rival the darkness of rubies and garnets.

Ian Gallagher had always been red.

And red had always been the one colour he failed to see in anyone else, at least not permanently.

He never understood why. He’d seen Lip get angry (hell, he’d been the brunt of his anger countless times) or the rage that’d overtake Fiona when life was cruel to them yet again, or when Monica disappeared and it would finally sink in Frank’s head. All of those moments should equate to red, or at least to Ian it should. And yet red would barely be there, maybe only for the slightest fraction, because all Ian could tell is that their own individual colours were running like watercolour, and that their colours hadn’t changed.

It plagued him countless times over the years.

Then he met Mickey Milkovich.

He’s not dumb, he’d known who Mickey was of course. They went to the same school, even though Mickey rarely attended. He’d taken one look at Mandy when she’d come to see him at the Kash n’ Grab and had immediately thought, _fuck, her brothers_. He’d known Mickey was relentless and impatient and demanding and everything that reminded Ian of himself when he got angry (too much, Ian thinks) but Mickey wasn’t red.

Mickey was black.

Dark and mysterious, truth concealed in the shadows and emotions bottled up inside. In a way it was fitting that Mickey was the colour that absorbed all light, like a black hole that collapsed in on itself, wanting to drag everyone down with him. He had malicious intent in the name of fun, barriers the colour of midnight to keep everything at bay, to prevent anyone from getting close enough.

And yet it hadn’t stopped Ian.

He fell, and he fell hard. The moments shared with Mickey over the years, from the dugouts to the freezer, there was never anything dull about it. It was frustrating and intoxicating and no matter how many times Ian tried to walk away, he’d turn right back around. No matter how many times he’d tried to tell himself he didn’t need Mickey, it was hopeless.

When Ian had been with Kash, it’d been quick and easy, clouding his head as easily as fog because it wasn’t anything special. Every time Kash would treat him as the other woman, and even though Ian knew he was, knew he was just a convenience, the truth settled like ash and stained his fingers charcoal, making him feel as though everything he touched would become the same.

And then there’d been Ned, who was a lighter shade like silver, but still grey. Appealing to the eye, full of promises and secret getaways and room service – all impersonal and routine and rendered Ian nothing but a chore. Ian was still second best because nobody ever chose Ian first.

Nobody ever wanted the burning unpredictability of red when you could have a bold, callous flint like Linda or a fierce, sophisticated violet like Candice.

It hurt, for a while. Ian can’t pretend it didn’t. He wishes his red wasn’t dampened by everything like that, his longing for love hadn’t been extinguished from a raging fire to the littlest of embers. It’d never be different. He’d always be the easiest option but the least valuable choice.

But then there’d been Mickey.

Mickey was jet black and made Ian experience more vivid colour than anyone else had. He was intimidating and yet Ian had never felt more at ease. Over time, Ian understood that Mickey wore the colour of the raven as a warning, a suit of armour that prevented anyone from accessing what was underneath to use against him.

And for a long time, Ian had chased Mickey. Red had pursued black, love had chased lust, raw and honest had chased secretive and unwillingness. It was a constant push and pull, Ian’s shades flickering from light to dark more times than he can count. He became elated when Mickey had gotten out of juvie, and heartbroken when Terry had beaten him and introduced Svetlana, equally as fast.

Svetlana was silver, but overtime had become more like stainless steel, toughened by the life she lives and circumstances beyond her control. The incident was never her fault, it was all Terry’s, and they know that. It’s just somehow fitting that in that memory, Svetlana had appeared like a blade, something Ian feels had been used to gut him when he watched Mickey in tears and moments away from shattering completely.

 

* * *

 

 

Colours seemed to drain from Ian’s life after that.

Mickey and Svetlana got married, and Ian felt like his light had finally been put out. The red that he’d worn on his sleeve like his heart had been stomped on, and then life became another whirlwind, only this time in the form of prescription pills and mood swings and the word _bipolar_ haunting him whenever he did so much as take a breath.

Red was different after his diagnosis. It was a forest fire, uncontrollable in his hysteria, relentless in his desperation. The shade of sangria had deepened to purple at his most manic phases, tricking himself into a life of luxury and invincibility, of doing drugs and stripping like his life depended on it.

And purple would fade into blue, those periods where he was bedridden and couldn’t move. Those moments where he could barely speak, but when he could, a burst of teal would follow, unnaturally rich and sudden and startling anyone in the vicinity.

“Just leave me alone!”

And then everything was grey. Numb, lifeless, zombified.  His siblings would watch him with cautious eyes, would follow the shadows he’d leave behind whilst biting their thumbs, not knowing what to do. They’d consider him to be just like Monica, stiffening around him as though they were injured, like the taste of iron was strong on their tongues.

“ _Like it breaks their heart just to look at you_ ,” Monica echoed, like a tendril of smoke.

Even Mickey, every so often. The colour of power and control, intimidation of others to protect oneself. After a while, it became about protecting Ian, sometimes from Ian himself. Even that failed after a while, Mickey being the one to experience terror, like when Ian had run off with Yevgeny and had left behind a trail of exhaust fumes, nothing but _grey_.

“I _love_ you,” Mickey had burst desperately, his colour having changed, too. It was soot now, left behind from Ian’s red burning out, and the persistence in which Mickey had stayed by Ian’s side was almost as if he was putting coal back onto the fire to try and build it back up again.

“The hell does that even mean?” because Ian wasn’t red anymore, and he couldn’t understand.

Ian was blue, and grey, and the occasional purple, but he wasn’t red.

Maybe that’s who he always was, but never wanted to admit it. Maybe Ian’s known this whole time that red isn’t permanent, that those feelings of love and affection and stability were all just that; a dream. Maybe Ian wasn’t cut out to be just one colour because that’s too simple, and nothing about Ian’s life has ever been simple.

 “It means we take care of each other.”

Or maybe it’s because red fell in love with black, and their colours just didn’t mix.

_You can’t fix me, because I’m not broken._

Ian was no longer red, and so Ian had to let Mickey go.

And in turn, Mickey was the darkest shade of black he’d ever been.

 

* * *

 

 

Time passed in a blur.

Mickey was locked up, and Ian was still grey. The meds still made him feel incapacitated, like it took too much to simply be alive, and there were still periods of aqua, making him feel as though he was drowning because everything was just _too much_.

_Too much is wrong with me_.

All of his siblings seemed to be suffering, too. Their colours all dampened and darkened, in constant flux. Perhaps that’s the way things were always meant to be for the Gallaghers. Maybe colour was asking too much.

Mandy had been with that abusive shit Kenyatta (who was black in colour, incapable of forgiveness and didn’t care who he hurt – but he wasn’t Mickey’s shade of black, because Mickey was _different_ , always) and her blue had become weak. Mandy had never viewed herself in a positive light, not in the way Ian sees her daily, but this was a new low, even for her. Ian had been unable to do anything as she suffered.

Ian had watched as she got out of the Southside, and took his blue skies with her.

And so the only form of blue he had left was Lip, but it was morphed.  He went off the deep end, mirroring Frank in the only way a son of the patriarch could know how to do, disconnected from the cobalt calm that Lip had possessed so well.  Ian liked to think that there’s still hope for Lip to regain his previous colours, but it’ll take time. Even with the best intentions, their colours had been altered one way or another. The Gallagher curse in yet another form.

Fiona’s brown was messy, chaotic, worn. Debbie’s yellow was crude, unnerving, bratty. Carl’s orange was ferocious, uncontained, unsettling. Liam was still white but it was a murky kind, replicant of one of those shit bottles of powder that you’d add water to make paint with, lumpy and watered down in the sense of damage.

Ian’s red was nowhere to be seen.

Life went on, and time still passed. Ian met Caleb, a self-absorbed tone of purple, screaming of arrogance. It reared its ugly head when he’d cheated, and Ian couldn’t even bring it in himself to be as worked up about it as he could’ve. The fight inside of him wasn’t the same.

It was locked away somewhere, like a correctional facility.

And then Ian met Trevor, one of the only other variants of white Ian had experienced. It’s because Trevor had pure intentions, regardless of what people did. Ian admired it in a way, and associated the shade with something he needed in his life, because white was good and Ian wasn’t, not anymore. Not for a lot of reasons.

He’d tried with all he had to like him, and Ian thinks he did, in a way. Nowhere near love, and Ian doesn’t think it’d ever have gotten to that stage, because there’s only one time he’s ever been consumed by that. Back when he was a scorching blaze of red, back when love was something he’d longed for, back when all he could see was pitch black.

It’d been catching up to him in flashes, like strobe lights cutting through the atmosphere of a club. How Mickey hadn’t just been black like he’d lead everyone to believe, like Ian had associated with him back in the days of the closet and brash words and harsher fists.

_“You’re nothing but a warm mouth to me,”_ had screamed darkness. _“It’s just a fuckin’ piece of paper,”_ was coated in shadows. _“Kiss me and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out,”_ was nothing more than a defence mechanism.

Mickey had been so used to a life of black himself that it’s what he became, when in reality, he was so much more than that. Mickey was best described as a kaleidoscope of colour, interchanging as easily as breathing.

It’d taken so long for Ian to understand, and sometimes, it still takes him a while.

“According to our records, you visited Milkhailo Aleksandr Milkovich in prison on multiple occasions.”

“…Mickey?”

And yet he doesn’t know how he didn’t see it sooner when he picked up that phone off the sidewalk and flipped it open, heart stopping momentarily as the faint, “Miss me?” came through, and all around him was red.

_“That’s the first time I’ve felt anything since…”_

It took him back to the dugouts, Mickey’s voice looping over the image of his bitten mouth pulling into a smile, raw lips and blood stained teeth, and it just _fits_.

“Mickey?” he breathed, and it washed over him like rain.

Of course it’s Mickey.

And so he’d gone to the docks and seen him standing there, all other thoughts going out of the window. It’s as if nobody existed but Mickey, as if no other colour mattered but the psychedelic patterns that encased everything Mickey did.

“Knew you’d come,” Mickey called out.

Ian never put much thought into it. Struggling with his feelings and then his diagnosis meant that he never had the time, could never even understand where to begin, but. He’d been a raging red when Mickey had been around, and the second he was gone, Ian didn’t know his own colour.

And that’s down to a lot of things – being bipolar, watching his mom leave all over again, the works.  Except he can’t think of red and can’t not associate it with Mickey – he can’t think of himself and not have Mickey in his mind.

He can’t kiss Mickey and pretend that he hasn’t dreamt of seeing red like this before.

“You ever think about me?”

It was soft, and quiet, a cautious blue that rolled off of Mickey’s tongue. That knowledge alone, that something other than black triggered a thought in Ian’s head, like a key sliding into a lock.

Ian always thought about Mickey.

_“Together,”_ he’d murmured, a burst of royal purple.

_“Ian, what you and I have, makes me free,”_ was white and honest and open.

“ _Guess what we’ve been doing, daddy?_ ” had been drenched in yellow, an uncontrollable burst of freedom and fierceness.

“ _Let me take care of him until he gets better_ ,” Mickey pleaded, coated in pink blush.

 “ _You need to call your family, Ian_ ,” he’d said, tinged with brown.

 “ _Your fingers go anywhere near that cock, imma break every knuckle in your hand, all fifteen of ‘em_ ,” was green with jealousy.

 “ _Sorry I’m late,”_ and it was orange the way a sunset was.

_“This is it,”_ was blue and watery, the same cerulean of his eyes. _“This is you breaking up with me.”_

Ian had always thought of Mickey and thought of black, because for so long, it’s all Mickey would let him see. And over time, his darkened walls came crumbling down, and colour began to cast over him like a light. He hadn’t meant to, not initially, but nowadays it was as though Mickey had stopped running away from Ian and started running towards him.

Mickey was a lot of things, a lot of shades, and for Ian to see that he’d been chosen for once in his life was like a smack in the face because _he wasn’t that same Ian anymore_. He got too impulsive and reckless and then became so low he felt pained, and the medication made his dick limp and his brain even softer, and he thought of everything he’d done in those moments of mania and those periods of depression and questioned how Mickey could ever want to come back to that.

He wondered what Mickey thought would happen.

And that’s when Ian had made his choice. Everything was too much, all at once. He couldn’t leave his family behind so suddenly, without a word and without any gratitude to them having helped him over the years, even when it seemed like the farthest intention that they had, even when he fought them with every breath. He couldn’t leave behind the stability of a regular medication routine and a job he was actually good at and a life he actually had, and it was tiring and sometimes boring and repetitive but it was _his_ , and for once he could look in the mirror and think to himself that he’s got everything straightened out.

As much as he loved Mickey, the way he’ll never love another, he couldn’t come with him to Mexico.

“I don’t want your fucking money, I want you to come _with_ me,” Mickey had snapped, and it was so strikingly _red_ that Ian almost started crying.

Mickey wasn’t black, but he was a literal rainbow. Ian wasn’t red, he was blue and violet and grey but never red.

Mickey was free, and Ian couldn’t be.

There’s a lot of things he doesn’t know anymore, a lot of things that’ve changed and are different to what they were a year ago. There’s a lot Ian doesn’t know, but all he does know is that this is Mickey, and this is who he’s always wanted, but not like this.

All he knows is that he’s no longer red, and that he’s no longer enough.

“I love you,” Ian tells him, and he tastes pink for the first time in a long time.

(But pink isn’t red, because Ian’s not the same.)

“Then get in the _fucking_ car,” Mickey says, as if the old Ian Gallagher is standing in front of him, capable of letting himself be loved again and letting himself love with all he has.

_The hell does that even mean?_

“This isn’t me anymore,” and it’s the only statement that’s felt strong and solid, the only thing that’s been a complete block of colour.

Mickey is grey.

“I’m sorry,” Ian whispers, tears burning his eyes.

Mickey is grey and it’s Ian’s fault, much like it has been for the past few years. Mickey is fading and it’s because he convinced himself that he could have a happily ever after, and Ian had let the wind carry the ashes away, shades of grey floating all around them.

They’re grey when they used to be red and black, used to be _something_.

They’re void of colour when they should be burning _red_ like Ian has always craved, like he’s always thought in the back of his mind that they’d eventually be.

Perhaps Mickey Milkovich was always full of colour, and Ian hadn’t wanted to see that. Perhaps he’d figured that Mickey was too good to be true, or that he himself was undeserving of colour after his diagnosis, after life caught up to him and wrapped it’s hand around his throat.

Perhaps Ian has always known that red was too bright for him.

Or perhaps black had taken all of the love Ian had to give and that there was nothing saved over for himself, and so a life without red was a life that he was destined to lead. It seemed fitting as Ian watched Mickey surpass the border, driving away from view and taking Ian’s heart with him.

The colours all around him drained from the edges of his eyes until he couldn’t decipher the different shades of grey, because in the end, everything looked the same.

In the end, Ian was no longer red, and Ian no longer had Mickey.

 

* * *

 

 

Somehow, it’s Frank that helps Ian to see clearer.

After leaving Mickey at the border, Ian returned to his life of fabricated shades. The hues of blues and purples brought on by the malfunction of his brain, the artificial periods of greys and flecks of yellow from his pills.

The storm weathered him down once he discovered Monica had died.

Arguably the only person that could ever truly understand him. He might not be Monica, but they were both bipolar, and they both felt run ragged by life and the hurricane in which they became. Where Monica chased the highs and shot up on drugs, Ian had always wanted stability, even if his wants had been warped by his diagnosis at first.

Monica might not have been a good mother, but she was still that. She was his mother, and now she was gone.

It’d been Frank’s eulogy that’d put things into perspective. He was still grey, a pebble shade that’d darkened from losing her entirely this time.

“Monica was the love of my life, and I knew that the first time I ever saw her,” he’d said, eyes watery and voice snagging in his throat.

Ian had suddenly found it difficult to swallow.

Frank was grey, and he always had been, but his words were so impossibly _red_ that Ian had to dig his fingernails into the backs of his hands to calm himself down.

“My pilot light was out and Monica was the gas company.”

It took Ian back to the summer where he was fifteen, working at the Kash and Grab and getting a quick fuck in every now and then, never quite satisfied. It took Ian back to the days where he’d long for that love he’d always dreamed of, for someone to choose him, because they could. Because they wanted _him_.

It took Ian back to when Mickey and his brothers stormed the shop and threw everything Ian’s ever known clattering to the ground.

_“Ian Gallagher!”_ echoed Mickey, and the words had been a taunt and yet hearing it back now in his head made something sound like a promise.

He’d been so used to taking what he could get from Kash, the secrecy and the lies and everything in between, whilst always knowing he’d go back home to his wife and kids. In a way, you could say his own pilot light had been dying, even though he hadn’t known it at the time.

And then Mickey Milkovich was the spark that brought those feelings back to life.

“She taught me how to live,” Frank had said. “She changed _everything_.”

Ian thought of the way Mickey had kissed him for the first time, remembered the feeling he’d gotten when Mickey invited him over, reminisced about the way Mickey challenged Ian’s ultimatum and came out in front of an entire bar and his homophobic father.

Ian thought of Mickey, and he thought of red.

“We loved a lot. We fought a lot.”

Butterflies had been felt as intensely as blood had been spilled. Mickey took his breath away as easily as a kiss from a fist. Ian felt fire flare beneath his skin at every touch and felt molten lava burning him up when they clashed.

Ian had always been red growing up, but the kind of red Mickey made him experience was a different kind.

He used to think he knew what it was (but now he _knows_ ) and it still simmers beneath his skin, in his veins, down to his bones.

It’s the kind of red that burns loud and relentless with passion, with _love._

The one thing Ian had always wanted.

The one shade that he’d wanted to wear since forever, the only hue that could be brought to his life by a singular person.

“…and you wouldn’t be who you are, and I wouldn’t be who I am, if she hadn’t come into our lives,” Frank was finishing.

He’d gotten it wrong growing up.

Ian hadn’t been red because he chose to be.

Ian was red because he was in love, and he was red because he was loved back.

Ian was red because Mickey was, too.

 

* * *

 

 

It still takes him a while to catch up.

After the funeral, he goes off his meds. He figures that he’s not red anymore, so it shouldn’t matter. Instead of controlled chaos of navy and indigos, it was unpredictable. He was seeing life in technicolour, but the neon kind, the abnormal shades.

It’s what helps him to justify his choices. The Gay Jesus movement, the detachment he feels from his family, any action that could be considered against the norm he should be feeling.

And it goes too far.

The van he blows up ignites in an explosion of orange flames, not quite close to red but deep enough to satisfy his muddled thoughts. He’s content with his actions for all of several moments before it begins to sink in.

He makes bail and he’s manic all over again, and he soon comes crashing down from his high as quickly as reality clamps down on him. He goes to a court hearing eventually where he pleads not guilty on the count of insanity due to his condition, due to the lack of medication. And to Ian and only Ian, his lack of _colour_.

Ian gets sentenced to two years in prison and somehow the news doesn’t frighten him as much as he feels it should. A part of him knows it’s what he deserves. A part of him left with Mickey that day at the border, and wonders if his love is relishing in white beaches and scorching heat that could rival the red flare that Mickey triggered within him.

He balances out yet again, having resumed his medication and opened his eyes to the fact that he’s not indestructible, that he needs to slow down before everything ends too fast. The knowledge that he’s going to prison just makes him think of four walls and the fact that the strongest person he knows repeatedly survived being incarcerated, which gives him faith that he can do this; if not for himself, for Mickey, wherever he may be or whoever may be by his side.

That thought makes him feel sick, and for a moment, he thinks of green.

Saying goodbye to family makes Ian experience the most colour he’s felt in ages, even though it’s not his own. It’s Lip’s melancholy blue and Debbie’s sullen yellow and Carl’s faded orange and Liam’s newly pristine white that make him feel at home even though his hands tremble. It’s Kev and V’s mixture of green that’s unique that grounds him and makes him feel capable of surviving prison.

It’s the concoction they all create to make one dysfunctional family that has Ian fighting back tears.

One minute he’s saying goodbye, and the next he’s clad in a yellow jumpsuit and manoeuvring through a sea of inmates, all murmuring and staring. Fuck, he’s really here. He’s fucked up big time, the realisation playing like a broken record within his head, even as he reaches his cell.

Day one of seven hundred and thirty.

Ian has to brace himself against the bunk once he’s inside, placing his folded clothes on the bed up top as he bends his head and tries to breathe.

The door opens behind him, hears the slide and clank like metaphorical chains around Ian’s ankles, weighing him down.

He can’t do this.

He clamps his teeth together and heaves his body away from the bed, turning around to face whoever it is he’s going to be stuck with.

All he sees is yellow, at first.

And then, Mickey.

 

* * *

 

 

Mickey Milkovich is stood in front of him.

Ian can’t remember what breathing is, and something sudden coils around his lungs like a vice, and he’s frozen. Mickey drove off into the sunset without him, a burnt sky that resembled Ian’s past and what their future could have been ( _should_ have been, if only Ian was worthy of that).

Mickey should be in Mexico, free from being Ian’s keeper, free from prescription pills and doctors’ appointments and the chaos that Ian can’t seem to shake, rooted deep in his genetics.

For a moment, neither of them say anything. Party because they can’t, partly because they’re drinking one another in, almost as if the slightest sound would make this scene disappear.

“I rolled on the cartel I was working for and in exchange… guess who gets to pick where he gets locked up?”

Mickey’s voice alone is worth a thousand shades of red, flooding Ian with warmth that only he could cause. And it’s real. The grit of Mickey’s tone echoes off of the walls, and he continues to stand in the doorway and stare at Ian in a way that seems almost challenging, as if to say, _your move_.

“Holy fuck,” Ian breathes out.

He’s in prison and yet he feels lighter than he has in the past year.

“Oh, hey,” continues Mickey, moving forward. “I got bottom, so… you’re on top.”

Ian is powerless to do anything but watch as Mickey saunters past him, signature eyebrows cocking up in a daring manner as he takes the bottom bunk, sprawling out with his arms behind his head. His lips pull into his trademark smirk, a deep red that Mickey had hidden away from view for so long.

The deep red that reminded Ian of love.

In that second, it’s as if the sun came out. The intensity of the situation makes his chest feel light, skin warming like the sun is shining down on him once again. The storm clouds and fog and shades of grey from dim candlelight have all been burned away, and there’s ash left behind but there’s those vivid colours again peeking out over the horizon.

Flickers of yellow and dashes of orange, and they’re merging together like a small flame that’s slowly building to a full height. All the time Ian had spent surrounded by disbelief and doubt that he was worthy of love anymore, the hope that there is someone out there for him, it’s gently trickling back into his head, slotting together like long-lost puzzle pieces have just been rediscovered.

Ian moves before he speaks again, feeling the light slipping through his fingers like sand, words only a foreign concept to him the longer the seconds pass. He’s on top of Mickey in an instant, pinning one hand against the bed, and the weight of Mickey beneath him and the calloused touch of Mickey’s fingertips and the matching scars they both wear like second skin all feel like coming home.

Mickey’s eyes are blue, a calming tone as they trace over every hardened line of Ian’s face, every breath that he takes. Ian thumbs his cheek, his chest stuttering with shaky breaths because Mickey is here, with him.

He’s seeing colour as if for the first time.

There are edges to Mickey that’ll never truly fade, the obsidian of his hair and the ink scrawled on his knuckles, all an echo of the black that Mickey used to be concealed behind. It’s a reminder of the violence that still crawls through his veins, deep in his bones, the fear that’ll take a lifetime to dwindle.

There are colours that’ve stained Mickey like paint smeared against skin, and that’s okay.

It’s the same with Ian, he knows now. The aqua of his tears when he feels too low to even feel competent, the mauve of his mood constantly flitting between good and bad. The middle area of grey, where he’s not feeling brilliant but he’s not wanting to slit his wrists, either. And that’s him, and his bipolar, and he’s not always content with that but he’s trying.

It took him what feels like forever, but he’s understanding that colours can change.

Like now, as he leans down at the same time Mickey curls his fingers into the back of his neck, kissing him with ease. It’s a familiarity that takes the form of the sun and the moon, for they always fall but rise the next day, one after the other in a constant pursuit.

For Ian, it has always been Mickey.

And it’s those moments like earlier, the overwhelming clash of colours that he now identifies as Mickey, that he understands. It’s knowing that Mickey chose to sacrifice his freedom to be with Ian that tells him that he’s someone’s first choice after all.

It’s the fact that for Mickey, it’s always been Ian, too.

They lay there for what feels like hours, tongues sliding together and teeth occasionally clashing, reacquainting themselves with the feel of their skin brushing and their lips snagging and everything there is about one another. In some moments, it feels like they’ve never truly been apart.

Except they have the colours to show for it.

A soft pink coats Ian’s eyelids and makes him feel lightheaded, the tenderness of Mickey’s presence and mouth triggering tremors that coarse through his body. There’s a white light that he sees that he no longer associates with any negativity, but of a future.

There’s pink and white, and black and yellow, and Ian and Mickey.

There’s so much to talk about. Perhaps too much. Things buried from all those years ago and stuff simmering on the surface of the past few months. They’ve got baggage and battle scars and wounds to last them a lifetime, but Ian can feel the promise in the way Mickey’s mouth moves against his own.

They’ve got the one thing now in these four walls that they never felt enough of before.

They’ve got _time_.

No words are said, not for hours. They just map out each other’s bodies, both with familiar ease and a foreign caution, old and new. Ian relishes in the soft sounds of their lips and the guttural noises from low in Mickey’s throat, and Mickey’s hands are all over him, carding through his newly dyed hair, black as the day they met.

Ian doesn’t quite know where to begin, but he thinks that’s good. They can decide where the starting point is this time, and go from there. They can bask in the afterglow of their reunion for a little while longer (or perhaps, Ian already knows, the entirety of his sentence.)

After all, Ian is going to have to get used to being red again.

“You were free,” Ian whispers later, into the crook of Mickey’s neck as they intertwine their legs and hold one another close.

Mickey huffs out a breath. “Ian, I felt more trapped in Mexico on my own than I do locked in here with you, and that’s that.”

It’s strange sounding to Ian’s ears, the open words and honest tone, the underlying passion that’s been waiting to make itself known. It’s Mickey laying all his cards out, all of his armour down, for Ian’s eyes only.

“It’s you and me, alright?” murmurs Mickey. “You think I give a shit that I’m in lock up again?”

It’s a red string of fate connecting their two souls together, having been tangled and knotted but never severed, even after everything. They are inseparable, constantly being separated, and it’s _red_ that binds them, like it’s been predestined since their beginning.

Ian can’t control the smile that takes over his face, even if his eyes are clouded and his bottom lip is quivering. “You’re with me.”

Mickey tugs him closer, the movement impossibly soft, and the words tumble from Ian’s trembling form.

“You’re _here_ , with _me_.”

“Fuck, are you done?” Mickey asks, but it’s relaxed, accepting. “You think I’d rather be anywhere else than with your ginger ass?”

Ian thinks of that question that’s always been burning at the tip of his tongue, in both the darkest of times and the brightest of days. _Why are you with me?_

Mickey’s chest heaves below him with his breathing, and the weight solidifies the answer, something Ian now knows has never changed. It’s the answer that Ian’s wanted to hear since he was fifteen and desperate for love, and needed to hear when the storm cleared and he’d accepted his diagnosis.

_I chose to be with you_ , is what Mickey is telling him. _Every time, I’ll choose you_.

And Mickey has.

Ian just has to let the answer sink in a while.

“Not exactly ginger at the minute, Mick,” he quips, breathing Mickey in.

“Nice to know you missed me too, firecrotch,” and Ian feels a tug at his dyed locks for emphasis.

A beat passes. “I’ve always missed you,” Ian admits quietly. “I’ve always wanted what we have.” _I just couldn’t let myself have you after everything that happened._

“Jesus, alright,” Mickey cuts in, and Ian doesn’t need to pull his face from Mickey’s neck to know he’s got a small smile on his face, the rare and beautiful kind that was always reserved for those moments where Ian was lost and couldn’t find his way back. “Cut that shit out.”

Ian nips playfully at Mickey’s throat, giggling breathlessly when Mickey jabs his fingers into his sides in retaliation. It seems uncharacteristically light for the heaviness of prison, but it’s okay.

They have each other.

They have time.

“Fuck, why’d these jumpsuits have to be yellow?” Mickey huffs after a moment.

“I like it,” Ian murmurs, because he does. It reflects the happiness Mickey’s brought to Ian’s life, and the freedom Mickey is capable of feeling now that he’s escaped his father and all his other demons that tried to dull his shine.

 “’Course you fuckin’ do.”

“You suit every colour,” Ian whispers into the skin of Mickey’s throat, smiling as it rolls off the tongue with the ease of the _I love you_ that’s always been at the tip of Ian’s tongue, waiting to be shared like a secret between them.

(And in a way, it is.)

“Yeah?” Mickey questions, fingers tracing patterns onto Ian’s arm that feel an awful lot like a declaration of his own.

“Yeah,” answers Ian breathlessly. “But you suit red the best.”


End file.
